


To The Victors

by GreenWool



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-05
Updated: 2014-03-05
Packaged: 2018-01-14 15:31:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1271801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenWool/pseuds/GreenWool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The seasons are turning and her body molds itself into the image of a woman. The world keeps spinning even as she stands completely still." Peeta and Katniss grow, and grow back together. Canon, MJ-Compliant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One: Katniss

_**One** _

* * *

_There are large spans of time she cannot account for. Doesn't try to._

_There is no bracelet to announce her illness anymore, but its written, free-verse, across her body. In her blank eyes, in her twitching hands, her dull hair and patchwork skin…_

_Weeks pass. Lucidity comes back to her in drops and splashes._

_Her awareness trickles back to her like water down a dry throat, and suddenly she is in a rocking chair by the hearth, the metallic ring of shovel against rock reaching her ears from just outside her front door. She is up, throwing the door wide open and talking without understanding what she is saying- but there he is. There he is._

_She is not sure exactly how the days pass. She is crying while holding a cat. She is holed up in a earthen hollow in the ground, humming softly for hours. And she is home, and he is there. In her kitchen, at her table, by her side. With bread and steady hands and a soft tone in his voice. He was thin, and then slowly he was strong again. He was tall and strong and safe again._

_'Safe,' her mind purrs with approval._

_He is safe. Everything else will fix itself._

* * *

There's a new cruelty that she has found in her mirror, and it drives the very breath from her.

She sees it while watching the water on her skin stream in twisted rivulets down the scars on her torso. She is freshly bathed- warm, wet and softly scented following her day's hunt- and her reflection is a grotesque patchwork in the dim bathroom mirror. The water trickles down the tortured skin of her sides, and she watches, hypnotized, as it veers outward quickly to trace down her hips, which are suddenly more spacious than she remembers. With a shock, she realizes she is in bloom- as her mother would say- curving with a new and alien luxury out from her waist. The strangeness of her new silhouette startles and humiliates her.

It has been a months since her return to Twelve. Change would come, this she knew- it was as inevitable to her as hunger- but her time had become liquid, something that slipped around her as a water would a stone. Days ran together, the nights that separated them simply extensions of the tortured hours before. She slipped in out of awareness- she remembers wisps of time in the still woods, the soft timber of Peeta's voice breaking through some foggy afternoon, the morning when she discovers the tiny primroses are in bloom… but these events bleed together without linearity. Dr. Aurelius calls this 'dissociation', and insists she take the medication he has given her. But she is afraid to. She is afraid to forget the pain, afraid to leave it, afraid she will forget herself, afraid she'll fade away into blackness like she's does when Morphling runs through her veins. She's so afraid she'll lose herself that somehow she's forgotten that the world could easily lose her.

When she returned to District 12 it was early in spring. It is now late summer and the blueberries in the glade have blushed dark and plump enough to harvest. It's a sign she's nearly missed- but it marks that time has passed, with or without her notice or permission. It's helplessness she feels, and frustration- first with herself, then with everything and anything she can imagine.

The seasons are turning and her body was reshaping itself into the image of a woman. The world keeps spinning even as she stands completely still.

She scrutinizes herself further in the mirror. Her face- she cannot look at her face. Self-disgust boils in her stomach. Her eyes trail down her neck- a column decorated with the first tendrils of her extensive scarring, which meander over her shoulders and race down her back, twisting over her hips and ending in fine trails just above her knees. She tries to move past her scars and finds her eyes trailing over her smooth thighs and flat stomach to her breasts- soft and newly heavy- their presence as surprising to her as the swell of her hips.

She thinks of blueberries' warm sweetness and the roundness she feels when they are in her mouth. Their tangy skin and pale flesh.

She had discovered them earlier that day on her her way back home. The glade where they grew was airless and cloaked in dappled light, the grass drier than it had been in weeks past. She remembers her shock at the berries' premature plumpness. Their maturity signaled the end of summer - and though she cannot remember much of the past few months, the calendar tells her that this season has been unusually short. This winter will be long, she thinks. She has seen enough winters in Twelve to know the signs of a long, hungry winter. As she picked the berries, her mind is aware that she has not begun to stock for winter, and that this year she would only be stocking enough for herself.

_'The world keeps spinning.'_

The fruit dropped easily into her hand and the nearly black orbs pooled in her cupped palm. She picked what she could carry home, and then reached for a final handful to taste. She did so mindlessly, and didn't see the sallow body of a large spider until it was in with the berries in her hand, its spindly legs stretched over the top of the fruit. Startled, she dropped the berries and backed away. A strange fear curdled in her stomach, making her hands moist and her knees weak. The next thing she was aware of was that she sitting in a dark closet, taking short, shallow breaths with her eyes screwed shut- her journey home and any moments in between lost forever to the blank darkness that gnawed at her mind.

She comes back out of her memory and her eyes adjust to the dim bathroom light. She catches a brief flash of her own eyes, wide and red-rimmed, before she tears her gaze away and back down to her body.

Her face.

She cannot look at her own face.

The scarring of her torso and arms comes back into focus and anchors her to the present. She wonders when her awareness will slip away again. When would she have another moment of clarity? Hours from now? Days? When would she 'wake up' again, and what would she will be doing?

Will she spend the rest of her life in this strange limbo between waking and sleep?

Her body's subtle transformation is a mockery of her scars. A grinning, brutal dismissal of her newfound ugliness and the strange comfort it brought her.

She stumbles to her room and climbs into bed, aching as though every inch of her were a bruise.

* * *

That night she falls into terror like a bottomless chasm. She sleeps in fits, dreaming that her scars become spongy, black mold. She is covered in it and suffocating, unable to do anything but watch her flesh collapse. And then she doesn't sleep at all- screams into her twisted sheets until she cannot breathe, until she can't think of anything other than the rawness in her throat and eyes and the congestion in her nose.

She finally rises in the morning with a pounding in her head, breathing heavily and soaked in her own sweat. Everything made the throbbing in her head worse, from the sun burning from behind the jagged horizon in her window, to the heavy thumps and clangs of Peeta tinkering around in her kitchen. A steady hissing and earthy scent alert her that he is making coffee- once a luxury in District 12, now enjoyed daily by most residents. She allows the aroma to fill her as she lays in bed and wills the pounding in her head to ease. Her scar tissue pulls as she raises herself from bed and stretches, and its tightness is uncomfortable and painful. Another quick shower will help her skin, so she pads to the bathroom, careful to avoid the newfound horror in her mirror.

Her shower is fast, and as she dries herself she runs a hand through her hair. The short cropped bob frames her face neatly, but her thick hair is unruly at this length, and it sticks out at odd places despite her best efforts to tame it. The ends of her hair are uneven, the back close cropped to her neck, while the front hangs nearly to her chin. Her bangs are nearly too short but run pin-straight across her forehead. The wetness from her short hair drips down her neck, leaving long trails of cooled skin in their wake she doesn't bother to dry.

She dresses quickly, pulling on a pair of heavily worn pants and a loose-fitting cotton sleeveless shirt. Even the soft cotton of the shirt and the looseness of her pants irritates her new skin, which is flushed and dry from the shower. She has forgotten her lotion again. She does not want to undress, but the discomfort is so intense that she relents, pulling the offending garments off roughly and hissing as the material drags across her skin.

She pads back to her bathroom where, with a nearly silent gasp of relief, she rubs the cold cream into her skin with gentle fingers. She grits her teeth as she stretches to apply it to her back, which is so twisted with newly grown tissue that some days she cannot bend forward for fear the skin will tear outright. With a sigh she attempts again to dress herself, but finds she cannot justify the grating irritation of her pants and shirt. She settles on a simple cotton dress instead, which is a pale green and floats softly around her. It is feminine and pretty, and she feels like a liar.

Without bothering to put on socks, she pulls on her old hunting boots, lacing them tightly.

As she descends the stairs to humid warmth of the kitchen, her heart clenches softly in her chest. The waiting spread on the table awakens her hunger- something once so constant, and now so fleeting. There are poached eggs- Peetas new specialty and a weakness of hers- a freshly baked loaf of heavy grain bread, a dark pot of coffee, thick slices of bacon and a small bowl of rich cream and summer berries.

Meals are something of a new thing for she and Peeta to achieve on their own. Sae has left them to their own devices after months of near constant care. At first she had been wildly incapable of attempting to put food together on her own (let alone eat it)- but Peeta- always patient, gentle Peeta- had helped her. Slowly, steadily, she had adjusted. She attempted to reciprocate as best as she could when it was he who needed help. She could make him simple but hearty meals, and could rouse him enough from the confines of his own downward spiral and help him nourish himself until he could claw his way out. Though more often than not, it was he who was providing- he who was rescuing her from her own breathless prisons.

Food was no longer a pressing concern for either of them, but there were always things she could provide that the Capitol couldn't. When she able, she was hunting. She had little faith in Dr. Aurelius and his routines, but Peeta seemed happier when she was cooperative with whatever absurdity the Capitol doctor asked of her. His encouraging smile was enough to draw her from her bed in the morning, to put food in her mouth when she was hungry, to close her eyes and try to sleep when she was tired. She could do this for him, these meaningless rituals. Even if it was all she could do for him- the boy who saved her despite the world's ( _and her own_ ) best efforts to die. She could continue to exist for him: beat her heart for him, blink her eyes for him, clean her skin for him, string her bow for him.

He needed someone to be there to for him when he was swallowed by his own darkness. She couldn't think of leaving him to do that alone.

This morning she has risen on her own and dressed herself. She has survived another night. It's good enough for now.

Her boots feel solid and she is grateful for the sense of weight they give her. She associates their heaviness with the darkness and quiet of her forest. She pads down the stairs and hallway, stopping herself just in the doorway of the kitchen. Peeta has not heard her approach and she surreptitiously takes a moment to observe him as he busies himself with the rest of breakfast. His thick crown of curls is robust and longer than he has ever worn it. In the summer heat, some of the more delicate strands have plastered themselves to the nape of his neck.

As he leans over the counter, his broad shoulders move and she can see dark patches on his thin shirt where has has already begun to sweat. She watches the play of light on his back. She considers him carefully, aware, for what she feels like is the first time since the Capitol, of his physical solidness. Peeta has not faded like she has since their return to Twelve- he has lurched forward. She feels weak and guilty, and steadies herself against the doorframe. It anchors her before the faintness she feels in her chest drags her under. She thinks back to last night, when she desperately clung to her awareness of her own physical form to keep herself from fading under the weight of self-disgust.

The brightness of the sun illuminates him, and he is nearly radiant in her kitchen. As she watches him, the faintness in her chest dissipates. The scent of coffee and bread fills her again. She will not go under, not today. From the movement of Peeta's arms she can see he is kneading dough, and she can almost feel the gooey texture and taste the yeast in her mouth. Unbidden, the image of his rough hands working the dough rises to the surface of her mind. Its so vivid she is taken aback for a moment, trying to understand the power of its suggestion. She flushes uncomfortably and dismisses the direction of her thoughts. She rouses herself from the doorframe and steps forward.

"Morning", she greets him quietly, and sits down at the table.

Peeta looks at her over his shoulder, quickly assessing her. He smiles, clearly pleased with something.

"Good morning", he says softly. "You're up early. Did you sleep ok?"

She nods. She can't bring herself to lie to him with her own voice.

She traces the seams of the wood table with her fingers, unsettled by her fascination with his hands. He returns to his dough, placing the warm lump into a black cast-iron bread pan and swaddling it with damp cheesecloth. The cloth drapes delicately over the heavy pan, and she is struck by the constant contrasts she notices when he is present. There is something musical to him when he is creating- food and images alike. There is a rhythm and purposefulness with which he moves that belays his gentleness. She watches as he brushes his large hands together to rid them of residual flour and dough.

He pours them both coffee at the counter and sits across from her at the table. She follows the curve of his shoulders down his powerful arms. His hands gently cup his mug of coffee, and like a shot, her heart is off and racing. Embarrassed, her eyes quickly flit to his face, knowing full well that a wild flush stains her cheeks. He is smiling at her again, but he looks down quickly and clears his throat, matching pink stains rising on his own cheeks.

"Hungry?"

* * *

There are good days and there are bad, of course. Days she awakens in the bottom of a closet- suffocating in the airless heat of the small, musty space. She curls into herself and disappears for hours.

Until he finds her.

He drags her from the depth of her malaise to the garden in the back of her house. He puts moist earth in her hands, urging her to pack it around the newly planted garden. She obeys- lost to everything but the realness of the scent of wet dirt. Its a familiar scent- safe. His rough hands hold hers, helping her press the soil around the small plants. The contact leaves her feeling confused- she's electric and empty all at once.

Sometimes he guides her to the forest- where the scent of pine and the crunch of dry needles under her boots bring her brief moments of clarity. He walks with her until they reach the shade of a small copse of dense pine, where he settles her on a blanket, and the afternoon can slip peacefully away from her as she naps beneath their dark boughs. Hidden in the cool darkness of the pine's thick overhead branches, she finds the relief of smallness and anonymity. He draws in a sketchbook- the trees, her sleeping face, her relaxed hands in the mottled light.

She can sink to depths where she can't be roused, where she is still and mute and unresponsive. On those days he sweeps her into his arms and moves her to the studio in his attic, where the scent of linseed oil and freshly shaved graphite fills her nose, and lulls her to sleep. He gathers fabrics for her- silk, and others she can't name but are smooth and soft to the touch. She pools them around herself and tries to disappear underneath them. The fabrics are a sea she can drown in, or a nest he has built for her- she cannot decide which- but they hide her and she feels blessedly empty. She sleeps like the dead and dreams of nothing.

One day when she awakens in the attic Peeta has painted her- disappearing below the fabrics, and asleep on top of them, and the look of transfixion on her face as she touches them. He is generous with her- she is rendered softly and so beautifully that her eyes prick with tears. He draws her more delicately than she knows she really is- her scars less visible, her face at once both serene and utterly devastated. It is his vision of her as she disappears in her pain.

Her madness is real and recorded- it has a solid form and the helplessness that suffocates her lessens. He gives her a voice just as her own disappears. Of everything he has given her- and it has been far more than she could ever hope to repay- this gift has been the best of all. It is once again the bread that sustains her, and it is his hands that have delivered it to her. She collapses against him, and he holds her until her sobs becomes breathless sighs.

That night her emptiness is a trapped, rabid beast clawing its way out of her deepest, darkest places. She screams herself raw into her mattress and lets exhaustion crush her in thunderous waves. She murmurs voicelessly to herself over and over again as she sinks below the surface of sleep:

_"My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am eighteen years old. I am from District Twelve. My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am eighteen years old. I am from District Twelve. My name is-"_

* * *

The next morning is the last day left of August. It dawns bright and cool, marking, as she suspects, that summer this year will be short. The migratory birds will be departing soon, so she rises with the sun. She forgoes her father's jacket and yanks on a soft charcoal grey sweater, worn black pants with holes in the knees and her hunting boots. In a moment of forgetfulness, she reaches back to braid her hair, only to remember that it is gone. A wry smile twists her lips and she shakes her head.

With a start, she realizes she has smiled.

She cannot remember the last time she has smiled in humor. She raises tentative fingers to touch her lips, and then her cheeks, trailing over the still smooth flesh of her face. The twist fades slowly from her lips and a crushing guilt replaces it.

She can barely breathe, and curls into a ball at the foot of her bed. She is crying so quickly she does not know what has happened, and then she is racing to dry heave into the sink. She has not eaten yet, and there is nothing inside of her to expel. When her stomach has finished with her punishment she looks up and watches the spittle slowly drip off her bottom lip.

This- this is who she is now. This creature in the mirror with the wild eyes and choppy hair and pale skin.

Her face.  _Her face._

She is looking at her face- she hasn't seen it in months. She raises her eyes to meet her own gaze and finds that she does not need to tear away. Instead, she looks steadily back into her shadowy orbs.

They are red-rimmed and swollen, dark circles settling heavily underneath them like silt in a lake.

* * *

She slumps a little as she walks out of Victory Village and towards the forest. She moves with resolute silence, her hot breath blowing back against her cheeks in the cool morning air. Though her game bag knocks against her hip, she knows today she will not be hunting. She is craving the safe, green embrace of her forest, and she is so tired she can hardly keep her eyes open. Even so, she marches forward, eyes trained on the dark tree line ahead of her.

Summer has broken entirely, and the first of the autumn storms have descended on Twelve. One threatens now, but she knows if it does bear down it will be mild- all rain and rumbling and no wind. She loves the heaviness of the sky as she lopes through the meadow and skirts the rock she perched on so many mornings waiting for Gale. With him gone, this forest is hers now.

Relief is what this revelation inspires in her- relief that borders on hysteria.

Tired. She is so tired.

She slips easily into the woods and fetches her bow from the hollowed tree. With the weapon safely over her shoulder, she bounds forward.

She wanders aimlessly for what feels like hours. The glades she has not visited since the war welcome her back with soft, dappled light and bushes heavy with berries. She eats as she wanders, sweet stickiness coating the tips of her fingers. She doesn't mind and licks them clean herself, taking full enjoyment of her solitude. She finds the lake and drinks greedily from her hands, wetness splashing down her sweater and mud soaking her knees. Upon standing, she surveys the land. Unchanged and unbroken. She is all scars and aches, but nothing here can recognize her or her story.

The tightness in her chest releases a little more. ' _Relief. Thats what this feeling is.'_

The trees are wrapped in silence as heavy drops of rain break through the upper canopy and plop wetly on her head. Instead of seeking shelter she allows the wetness to penetrate her clothing. It is not cold enough to make her uncomfortable, so she strips her jacket and sweater and tucks them in her pack. The rain splashes cool against her warm scalp and chest.

As morning fades to afternoon the rain picks up. She is making her way slowly south, where the pine copses fade into heavy boughed oaks, pale birches and stout basswoods. She has not been here much since her father passed, but it seems right to be there today. As she makes her way into less familiar territory, she runs her fingers over the bark of the trees, re-cataloguing their textures. It is darker and sparer here, with even the undergrowth towering over her head. The air is heavy with humidity and the scent of rotting wood and leaves. Pale mushrooms raise their brazen heads from under fallen branches and dead roots, while small clumps of soft moss dot the massive oldest trunks.

She tires as the rain picks up again, and climbs the nearest oak to huddle under a wide bough just above. Her clothing, long soaked through, clings to her uncomfortably but it is her hair, plastered to her head by sweat and rain, that irritates her. She pushes her bangs out of her face as she leans her back against the rough bark of the oak, but it is no use. They flop back down almost instantly, and she settles for sweeping them to the side. From her bag she draws a rope to tie herself to the branch. It is easily thick enough that she doesn't need it, but she knows she is so tired that she will sleep if she rests for even a moment. As soon as she is safely adhered to the trunk of the tree, she lets out a deep breath and lets herself sink against the warmth and solidity of the trunk. Exhaustion sweeps through her like a sudden gust and she slips dreamlessly away.

It is hours later when thunder rocks the forest and she awakens with a start. The sky rumbles threateningly, but the rain has mostly let up and the air is breathlessly still. Though she cannot see the sky, she knows it is coated in a layer of dark clouds because the light from tonight's moon is diffused and soft. She is not afraid of the storm, but allows the sounds to fill her mind and the vibrations of thunder to move through her. It's pleasurable- her chest feels empty and her heart beats strongly against her ribs, and while her stomach feels empty, it is not hunger she feels. Her shoulders slump and her eyes drift shut.

She does not want to find her way home tonight. Her eyes are so heavy and she feels so light and weak that the hike home seems abominable. The trees rustle around her soothingly, and she wants to stay wrapped in the embrace of the one she has climbed. Her bedroom is where she pays penance for her crimes- screams and rages against herself until she cannot move or make a sound. Here she can rest.  _She is so tired._

She pulls her jacket from her bag and wraps herself in it. Her father's scent has long since left the soft leather, but lining smells of cedar and snuz, and that is familiar enough to ease the lump in her throat when she thinks of her empty home. The storm continues for another hour before it breaks. The clouds clear and through the canopy above she can make out the moon suspended against a star-freckled black sky. She stares up at her piece of sky until she cannot keep her eyes open any longer. As she falls asleep she remembers her father teaching her how to carve an arrow, of the splits in the skin of his fingers, the coal dust in his nail beds, and the yellowed callouses on the finger he used to shove dip in his gums, and how he smiled at her, a lump in his cheek like a squirrel.

* * *

She is awake before the sun rises and slips from her perch in the tree silently. She is still damp from yesterday's storm, and sticky with sweat and berry juice, but she feels energized and clear-headed. The clean air fills her with a sweetness she cannot name. As she reaches the ground, she plans a route home, intent on being there before Peeta finds she has been gone all night. She does not care to explain herself.

She stretches- joints popping loudly in the early morning quiet- and then takes off in a light sprint northward. In the darkness the forest floor is nearly invisible, but she neither stumbles nor falls. Her feet and ears see where her eyes cannot. She fairly flies through the trees, arching east to make the best time. She arrives in the meadow just as the moon dips past the horizon line, and the first tendrils of dawn begin to leak into the sky. Its still dark enough that the lake is a placid black pool when she stops to drink. The cold water slips down her parched throat and makes her shiver. It is colder than she had realized, and her cheeks tingle in the crisp air.

By the time she is jogging back through the Village she is craving a warm shower and a hot meal. She pauses on her porch to strip off her muddy boots, and as she does, she looks up directly towards Peeta's house. The light in his attic studio clicks off suddenly, leaving her bathed in the remnants of the night's darkness.

"Welcome back, sweetheart," Haymitch calls from his porch with a snicker.

She frowns and glares at him angrily as she tugs a wet sock off.

"You're stinking drunk, Haymitch," she yells.

Haymitch just laughs louder.

"Yeah, well you look like something your damn cat coulda' dragged home. Where ya' been?"

"None of your business," she snarls.

"Personally, I don't care what all you been up to. But that boys been up all night waiting for you to come home."

Haymitch gestures toward Peeta's house with his bottle.

Her stomach clenches and a wave of guilt washes over her. She frowns and peels off her other sock.

"I got caught in the storm," she says gruffly. "Didn't mean to stay that long."

"Take a bath. I can smell you from here." Haymitch grunts, but the look of disgust in his eyes has nothing to do with how she smells.

She clenches her jaw before yanking the door open and slamming it behind her. Without pausing she strips down by her front door and kicks the sodden mess of clothes into a ball. She rushes through her shower and is careful to apply the medicated cream to her scars, which are tight and angry after she neglected them yesterday. She feels refreshed but her earlier guilt hasn't dissipated. She is unsurprised to find that Peeta has not made his way over for breakfast. He's probably trying to salvage what sleep he can.

Her brow knits and she worries her lip.

' _He should eat, at least._ '

She does her best, really.

It can't be helped that she never learned to bake- all she can make are tesserae-grade drop biscuits. They're no bakery bread, and they're certainly not even the best biscuits she's made, but they'll have to do. She separates the best looking few and wraps them in a dish cloth to keep them warm, including some cheese and freshly picked berries. She is almost to the door when a rush of shame makes her reconsider. It's embarrassing, really, how little she has to offer in return for his constant kindness, and its bewildering that he should continue to help her when there was no earthly way she could ever repay him. She grits her teeth and straightens up, marching out the door and toward Peeta's house.

She leaves the drop biscuits at his bedroom door and retreats back to her house. Slumping over at her kitchen table, she presses her hot cheek against the cool, uneven surface of the table and lets the wood leech the warmth from her face. She squeezes her eyes shut and makes a mental list of every way she is inadequate.

* * *

Its exhaustion that leads her to pull on thick socks and her boots again as the sun begins its slow descent through the sky. The terror the night brings is tugging at the hem of her mind and she is anxious to find her way back to the tree that held her the previous night. Her hands shake as she tugs on her father's jacket and swings her bag over her shoulder roughly. She rights herself, adjusting her jacket smartly, and swings her front door wide open.

Peeta stands there startled, arm raised as if to reach for her door knob. He sees her dressed for the woods and frowns, shifting his weight. She notices a crutch under one of his arms and wonders if he is in pain.

"So, you're going out again," he says warily.

She says nothing, but her eyes flicker to a point over his shoulder before they lower to her mud encrusted boots.

"I just-" He clears his throat. "I just wanted to say thank you."

She looks at him, puzzled, and then remembers her embarrassing attempt at biscuits from this morning. She flushes uncomfortably and the skin on her palms of her hands prickle.

"I'm sorry they were terrible," she says bluntly. Peeta cracks a smile and scratches the back of his neck.

"Give yourself more credit, Katniss... I could actually chew them this time."

The corner of her mouth twitches up and she clears her throat.

"I should get going," she murmurs, and Peeta steps back to let her exit. His eyes are trained on her face, searching for something. She hates it when he does this- when he reads her. She turns her face away from his gaze and tromps down her steps heavily. She swings her bag over her shoulder and it lands with a hollow thud against her back.

"Katniss," he says suddenly. "Wait."

She turns around to face him, his face awash in the late afternoon sunlight. His cheeks are dark and he squints in the harsh light. He raises a palm to his brow and a deep shadow obscures his eyes.

"It's not safe out there after dark. Last night you were out there during a storm, who knows what-"

"I'm not scared. I'll be fine," she interrupts.

"I know. I know you'll be fine," he says quietly, half of his face still hidden from her. Something in his tone asks a question she can hear but not understand. She can't decipher what he means, and it frustrates her. She is quiet for a long minute, and she and Peeta stand awkwardly in front of one another.

"Peeta, I'm tired," she says finally, her voice cracking.

"Ok. Ok… yeah. Just-" He swallows roughly. "Just be careful."

He turns around, shoulders hunched tightly. There was a time when he might have argued with her. But she is no longer the girl to whom he whispered 'Always' so sweetly that she could barely bring herself to hear it. She is just the shell that girl left behind.

Her throat tightens painfully and although she turns to leave the conviction has left her steps. She trudges off toward the edge of the Village and looks over her shoulder before she reaches it. Peeta is standing on his porch watching her. He raises his hand, as if to wave, but it stays still in the air. She does the same, and flashes around the corner of the brick wall.

* * *

She is wrong. The horror finds her even in the safety of her forest. She cannot sleep, and now the blackness is all around her while the moon veils herself behind heavy clouds. The wind picks up and buffets the limb she is anchored to and the creaking branches above her do nothing but tantalize her imagination. A wall is rising within her of all the things she fears, all the things she knows are a part of her now. She cannot speak of them in the daylight, she cannot even name them. They are all climbing into her throat and tearing themselves from her mouth, and now she is alone, suspended in the blackness of night, pulling at her ragged hair.

She finds neither sleep nor rest. The sun barely crests the horizon before she is stumbling from the tree and fleeing, and the fist she had shoved in her mouth during the night will be permanently imprinted with the deep bite of her teeth. Her bag knocks into her back with every stride she makes, but it is the dry burn in her throat that causes her breath to shorten painfully as she runs. She aches in every possible way.

Her hair flies behind her as she crosses the meadow, stumbling as her feet sink into the uneven ground. She jars her ankle but doesn't stop. The pain slows her to an unsteady jog, her frustration so overwhelming she wants to scream. But that would be no good, no good at all, because she is close to the Village and someone will hear.

They will have questions she cannot answer, ask things of her she cannot give. Things that oblige her to spill the horrors that live within her- things that will oblige her to take the medications that strangle her in a strange sleep that neither rests her nor allows her to wake.

She is so distraught that as she limps back through the gate she nearly walks right past him.

'They're startling, really, his eyes are,' she thinks. 'What else is that shade of blue?'

Not the grey sky that hangs over Twelve. Not a single pigment she'd ever seen, even in the Capitol. Only Peeta could make blue so warm.

"Hey," he mumbles, voice thick, and gives her a drowsy smile. She realizes that the odd constriction of her heart in that moment was something she felt before, many many times, when she looked into his eyes. A memory cracks her awareness like thick ice, loud as a gunshot and twice as fast.

_'I do. I need you.'_

And she does.

She reaches out a hand covered in the marks of her own teeth.

"Peeta," she croaks. The smile drops from his face and his eyes are grave as they flicker up to meet hers. He is reading her again. She wants to hide her face from him but she can't.

She can't because her mouth is moving, and words are coming out, but she hasn't thought them, and they don't sound like her words at all.

"Please Peeta- I'm- I'm so tired."

She doesn't know what she is asking him, but he seems to. He gently takes her hand- the one littered with the bites of her own teeth.

She sees identical marks on the back of his hand.

She drifts off the moment he lies beside her, his steady gaze bluer than the sky over his shoulder.


	2. Two: Peeta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Well, I am new to the HG fandom and FF in general, so Im not sure how this usually works, but I need a Beta. If youre interested, let me know. Thanks for reading! :)

_**Two** _

* * *

_He is kneeling in her yard with sharp stones digging into his knees. The pain is welcome- he has sinned against her and cannot be forgiven. Cannot forgive himself. Cannot forget- even for a minute- even in sleep. Primrose Everdeen's death is not his fault, not directly, but whatever role he played in the war helped kill her. Helped take her away from Katniss._

_And Katniss would see it this way. She would see fault lying with someone._

_The soil is moist in his hands. The scent of earth and new grass eases wounds he hadn't known still festered. He wants to wait until tomorrow to see her ('Its safer for her that way- less sudden,' he thinks), but he is trembling and anxious for it- so anxious that he is unaware of how much noise he is making, scraping up earth and rocks as he plants the small primrose bushes around her house._

_One moment he is absorbed in his task, the next, the door has swung wide open and there she is, like some kind of feral creature with its leg caught in a snare: Katniss Everdeen, pale and unwashed and dazed. She is leaning heavily against the door and squints against the weak sunlight. Her hair is short and completely wild. She is mad. She is filthy. She is horribly scarred. She is-_

_His heart quickens._

_She-_

_It's easy and natural, like taking a breath. Thats what loving her is like._

_This dirty waif covered in scars and glaring furiously at him is somehow still the only thing he could ever hope for. All of his careful plans fly out of his head. His words desert him. All he can do is stare._

_"You're back," she rasps, nearly mute._

_'Her voice is gone,' he thinks as his heart stutters to a stop in his chest._

* * *

He is bewildered and annoyed by the first book Dr. Aurelius sends him. It does not come with a note or explanation of any kind, and he has not owned a single book in his life that has not been about baking or coal. It feels like an obligation rather than a gift.

Its cover is a faded soft green with a delicate sketch of a jungle. The titles reads 'Lord of the Flies' and as far as he can tell, the book itself has nothing to do with baking, or art, or anything else that would be of interest to him. He does not quite know what to make of it, so he leaves it on the table next to his couch.

That night he sits quietly in his studio and attempts to sketch. Hunched over his table, he feels the strain in his neck and back grow steadily worse until a sharp twinge of pain rushes down his spine. He puts down his pencil and straightens up, noting with some alarm the black dots that dance at the edges of his vision and the lightness he feels in his head. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, counting down from ten as he does so.

His eyes fly open, however, when a muffled voice pierces the clear nighttime air. He rushes to the window only to watch with a sinking heart as a light in Katniss' house flickers on. He watches her silhouette through her curtain as she sits hunched over in her bed, her head cradled in her hands. More soft sounds emanate from her house, but now he can just barely make them out. He pulls away from the window clenching his jaw.

Its late, and though he is tired, he can't bring himself to sleep. It has been weeks since she has slept through the night. Subsequently, neither has he, as he is frequently wakened by thumps and muffled screams coming from her house. He knows in a few hours when he lets himself into her house to make them breakfast that she will hide in her room, then carefully scrub the night's tortures from her face with cold water and rough soap, and proceed to eat with him as though nothing were wrong.

The charade is wearing for her, but its torture for him.

Dr. Aurelius said it was the anxiety he felt when he heard her. He said it "triggered" him. His darkness lurked, but it required the chemicals his body made when he was scared to erupt and swallow him whole.

He was sick with shame that he couldn't go to her the way he had before- to hold her the way he so wanted to, to smooth the sweat-dampened hair back from her face, whisper sweetly to her until her heart slowed underneath his palm, until her eyes slipped shut and a sigh of relief drove itself from between her lips and fanned against his shoulder.

He is too afraid of what could happen- what he could do if he- if his control slipped- even for a moment-

Tonight his response to her muffled screams is pavlovian. He is dizzy and breathing heavily, pupils expanding rapidly in the dim light. He flees from his studio, tripping down the stairs to his basement where with trembling hands he padlocks the door. Its all he can do before stumbling backward and falling into blackness.

He doesn't know what time it is when he finally comes back to himself. He is lying on his back in soundless darkness, eyes fixed overhead where he can see neither the ceiling nor his own hand in front of his face. He lies in wait for hours until the splitting ache in his head clears enough for him to stand. He can see from the only window in the basement that it is still night and as he is too scared to venture back upstairs until the sun blushes along the horizon, he continues to wait the night out in boredom and fear.

This is how he comes to read 'Lord of the Flies' the next night as he flees from her screams. Its a distraction- a reprieve- an escape.

He sends the book back to Dr. Aurelius with a note that just says 'I didn't like it.'

* * *

_Its dark and almost too warm in the train car the first time he feels her pulse rushing under his hand._

_It fascinates him._

_Katniss had always been untouchable, an elegant abstraction that enthralled him. It felt like a fever- hot skin and shaking hands, chills and a dry throat. It was strange, but it wasn't illness. Before he had a word to define it he knew what he felt for her. And now she's here, and real, not fantasy, lying next to him. He had spent years aching for just this. He realizes if there's anything about himself he hates its his cowardice- his fantasies of Katniss Everdeen is a pale facsimile of her truth. He only wished he could have more time with her. He'll be dying soon. Its ok. It's ok- this would be enough. It was all he could have, so it would be enough._

_The night he feels her pulse she is a dreaming, warm and sweet, in his arms. He watches as her eyes flash underneath her eyelids and wonders what she sees._

_He hopes that she is somewhere wild and cold and free. Her words "Put you somewhere safe" run through his head. He wants to laugh- he could never keep her safe. He could only ever hope to give her back her freedom. She didn't need protection- she didn't need anything from him, really. If he was honest with himself, he was the most unnecessary thing in her life. He was an afterthought, a spare blanket folded at the foot of her bed. Sometimes he wished for outright rejection- it would hurt so much less than being trapped in the purgatory of her affections._

_Tonight he lies with her because she needs him, and he can't deny her anything, let alone the chance that she might dream something sweet. If its the simple warmth of his body that grants her that, then he will accept the heartbreak of knowing she easily discarded the rest of him in favor of his physical immediacy._

_He could beat his heart for her. He could fill his lungs for her. As long as she needed._

_But he feared that word- 'need'. Her need could be met. He knew his 'need' for her never would be._

_There are many nights where her pulse running under his hands become his crutch. She is alive- warm and safe and fed, and he is there to guard her sleep. She has made it another day, and the hours and minutes that tick by that he is loving her all alone seem like such a triviality._

_And he doesn't care- he doesn't care- with her warm skin underneath his hand, her breathe in his ear, her hair against his face- he couldn't care less. He counts the beats of her heart, memorizing its meter and the heavy thumping of his favorite muscle in her body._

_When they catch him and he thinks he will die._

_Its not too long before he hopes that he does._

_He remembers her words: "I'll see you at midnight." At night he dreams of her, and tries so hard to believe he'll see her again. In his dreams she is running just ahead of him, wild and cold and free._

_When the needle pierces his arm and he is dragged into the depths of hell, the beat of her heart, strong and alive, whispers in his ears like a hymn._

* * *

He is surprised two weeks later to find that Dr. Aurelius has sent him another, decidedly more ominous book. The cover is a soft white with the rough sketch of a leering skull, and he frowns. Dr. Aurelius has sent him another chore. Peeta flips the book over and a piece of paper falls out. He picks it up, and in Aurelius's loopy handwriting he reads "Alas, Poor Yorick!".

He throws the book into the basement anyway.

By nightfall he is glad he does. He reads the first soliloquy and finds himself transported, and his night in the basement passes without incident. He takes the book upstairs with him as dawn cracks in his window, and finds himself in an oddly meditative state while he starts on a loaf of bread. The strange words thrum excitedly in his mind, their meter tickling a part of him he didn't know still existed. As the dough rises, he rushes upstairs to his studio where his canvases sit covered in sheets and undisturbed since he has returned home.

He tears the sheets off and color and pain flood him in a breathless rush. The images leer at him- all the things he's worked so hard to forget or push away. His family and friends, lost to ashes. Katniss, lost to the same illness that consumed her mother. And himself, lost in between a disorienting reality and the surety of roaring blackness, afraid and alone. Powerless to fix anything.

When the bread burns, he sinks to his knees in the kitchen and sobs.

The words are there, echoing in his mind as though they had been etched into it.

" _Oh, that this too too sullied flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into dew_ -"

* * *

He picks up a paintbrush for the first time since the war the next day. It feels like a sigh as he dips it in paint and drags it along the roughly gessoed surface. He loses himself in his work for hours- capturing the exact tired blue of his father's eyes, the egg-coat sheen of a french loaf, Delly's wide smile, Madge's cautious gaze. He paints them all together- just a rush of memories that mix and drain out of him. Its sloppy and exhausting. His paints grow muddy and so does his water. He throws the dark liquid out of his window and watches the pigment sediment on the bottom of the cup rush out and splash on the ground in a strange wash of browns and pinks and blues.

When he washes his brushes it feels like he is baptizing them. The cold water turns the skin on his hands ruddy and makes the scars of Katniss' teeth prick.

When he sits down, all he can think of is green. He mixes a spectrum from pale lime to deep forest on his palette. He tries to think of what to paint, but nothing comes.

* * *

_"Why is she alone?," he blurts, as he barges into Haymitch's house. The older man is staring at the muted television, a bottle of white liquor resting on his stomach._

_"Welcome home kid," he mumbles, then yawns deeply._

_"She's over there breaking things."_

_"She's having a good day then."_

_He sighs in frustration and runs a hand through his hair._

_"Where's her mother? Where's Gale, Hazel, everyone else?"_

_"Settle down. Ain't nobody here but us, and ain't nobody else comin'."_

_Peeta's jaw goes hard._

_"So what- that's it then? We just give up? We let them abandon her? That's exactly what they're doing."_

_Haymitch shoots Peeta a withering glare over his shoulder._

_"Hell kid, lets just drag the whole district back while were at it, and we can all take turns babysitting."_

_"She- she deserves better. She's sick- she deserves more than this. She's done so much…"_

_Haymitch lets out a raucous bark of laughter and shakes his head._

_"You know, you can be the biggest pain in my ass." He says as he rubs his eyes and rises unsteadily. "C'mon kid- lets take a walk."_

_Peeta glances anxiously at Katniss' house across the street._

_Haymitch shrugs his coat on and belches loudly. "She'll be fine. C'mon."_

_Peeta is uneasy, but follows him out of the house and down the road._

_"Where are we going?," he asks, shoving his hands in his pockets and shooting a last glance toward Katniss' house. A loud crash emanates from within, and then the house is silent. He can't help the twinge of annoyance he feels that Haymitch is dragging him away._

_"Somewhere she-", he says as he gestured over his shoulder with the bottle of liquor still clutched in his hand- "won't overhear us. That girl has ears like a bat and she'd have my hide for what I'm about to tell you."_

_His ears perk up._

_"Tell me about what?"_

_"That girl's life- before the Games and the War. The kind of things merchant folk aren't keen to know about life in the Seam. You wanna play nursemaid, you might as well know what you're getting into."_

_Peeta frowns and tries to quell the dread that rises like bile in his throat. He knew nothing had been easy for her, but there isn't much else he knows about Katniss before the Games- she had been very private, almost shy, and had a hard streak that kept anyone but Gale Hawthorne from getting close to her._

_He fiddles with a button in his pocket and waits for Haymitch to continue._

_"That girl is the damned hardest thing that ever came out of those mines," the older man says, with a little pride. "From the Seam myself- knew her father growing up. She was hunting every week with that man when she was just eight years old. Grown men from Twelve died without ever seeing that forest, but everyone knew the Everdeens were damn brave and as good as foolish with pride- and too proud to ever let their families go hungry."_

_Haymitch squints and looks up at the gray sky hanging heavily over them._

_"It's in her blood- to be the way she is. She don't know another way to be. But there's some things she did… things she saw…"_

_Haymitch clears his throat and looks down at the hard-packed earth beneath their boots._

_What Haymitch tells him is too terrible and all he can think about is how badly he wished he could make it not true. How badly he wishes he knew- that he could change it- that he could turn time back and draw her into his arms and flee the Seam and Twelve and the Games and the war and death._

_His mind pirouettes from horror to horror… Haymitch catching her hanging around outside Cray's door during a particularly bad winter, wearing red lipstick and in one of her mother's dresses. She had been thirteen. He tries to picture it but all he comes up with is her blue reaping dress and a shivering numbness grips him..._

_Katniss watching unwed mothers her own age from the Seam sell themselves to Merchant men to feed their starving infants, and going with them to make sure they got their money- listening from just outside the door…_

_The group of older boys from Town who had jumped her on her way home from trading, when Gale had been home sick, how they had her pinned to the ground… His minds paints a picture for him of hands holding her arms down, closing over the bare skin of her wrist, their eyes greedy and bright…_

_And there's more, but its too much. It crowds his head like too many voices speaking at once._

_What could love possibly ever be to her? A mother who disappeared when she was needed most. Violence and humiliation. Something to trade, or sell, for survival. Something to pretend at to save her life, and to save the life of a boy who had helped her. Something to trap her, to manipulate her, to silence her. To put her in her place._

_An older boy on whom she depended who asked too much of her, too soon._

_A pair of hands around her neck._

_When Haymitch is finished he takes a long drink from his flask and glances at Peeta carefully. In the thin light its hard to tell if the older man is tired or very drunk, but his yellowed eyes are glassy._

_"So she's alone. Maybe its better that way. Ain't a soul out there that ever did that girl any favors- except that sister of hers- and you."_

* * *

Its the end of summer before he paints again. He doesn't mean to avoid it, but it seems as though every time he has an extra minute to himself he is spending it doing something else. He bakes, he works on his garden, he walks around the still nearly deserted district for hours until he exhausts himself. He sketches ideas out, plans to paint the next day, and never really tries to get around to it. He's doesn't dwell on his avoidance, though he brings it up with Dr. Aurelius one afternoon during their session.

Dr. Aurelius thinks its a creative block, and encourages him to work through it. Peeta doesn't. Instead, he spends more time with Katniss. He cooks for her and straightens out her house, and its easy to get started on doing more for her because she needs so much.

_'Need. There's that word again.'_

She lets him putter around her house- she is only ever between the kitchen and her bedroom anyway. Mostly, she seems not to notice much of what goes on around her. Her episodes of blankness confuse and terrify him. He hasn't seen anything quite like it, though he knows her mother suffers from the same affliction. He is not sure what to do when she slips away into one of her episodes, but can't bring himself to leave her to her own.

' _Its easy, so easy, when she's this docile, to grow attached to her,'_ he notes, dread and guilt twisting in his stomach.

He tries not to think about it too much. He knows when she doesn't make it to the breakfast table where to find her- in her closet, or behind her bed, or curled up tightly in her rocking chair. He takes her to their garden and puts dirt in her hands and hopes she feels what he felt kneeling in her yard- absolution, forgiveness. He's sure that this is what she needs, as much as he did.

When she starts sleeping even less and he is beside himself. Dr. Aurelius tells him that he is being reckless, that what he is doing is dangerous. He tells him to focus on his own recovery. He tells him to paint. But Katniss screams through the night and he cries himself to weakness in his basement and reads 'Alice in Wonderland' in the waxing light of dawn.

He wonders if he has also fallen into a rabbit hole.

When the sun is fully risen his heart beats tiredly in his chest and he stands on shaky legs to start a new day. He fixes breakfast and Katniss never comes down from her room. When he finds her curled in her closet, he feels something shift inside of him.

He gathers her in his arms without thinking. Heat radiates from her as though she is with fever, and her eyes are darkly shadowed. Worry and shame at his own powerlessness writhe in his stomach, and, not for the first time, he is jealous of the intuitive knowledge of her Gale seemed to have. Gale would know how to fix her. Gale would know what to say.

He wants to call him.

He can't bring himself to.

Instead, he does what he knows has worked before. He carries her to his studio, sets her down in a soft pile of fabrics he's gathered for her, and watches with a heavily thudding heart as her eyes drift shut.

_'Powerless.'_

That is what this mounting frustration is. He is powerless do anything to help her. And then the paintbrush is in his hand.

He paints her as he sees her- fierce, proud, and breaking in front of his eyes. He felt her aloneness acutely- it is just them and Haymitch here, and the sounds of their lives echo into the emptiness of Twelve. He hadn't meant to paint an indictment, but thats all these portraits can be.

_'You left her. You left us. How could you just throw us away?'_

He doesn't paint the Mockingjay, he just paints  _her_. Just Katniss- asleep, mad and nearly broken under the weight of her own grief.

He knows she is awake when her breath catches and her head slowly turns to face him. Heat stains his cheeks and he meets her eyes desperately, watching her as she looks over his work. He wonders if she knows how badly he needs her to come back to him. How badly he needs her to stay with him.

She flies into his arms and holds him so tightly he is sure the pressure will break them both.

* * *

The next day when he comes to find her she has already departed for the woods. She doesn't leave a note, and her kitchen is clean and cold. He clenches his teeth and tries to fight the frustration that rises in him. He knew growing attached would be a mistake.

He retreats back to his house. He can't help it- he hears her words echo in his head.

_'I need you.'_

He sits on his couch with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands for a long time.

When he stands, however, it is with purpose. His feet find their own way back to his studio, and, just like with Katniss' portraits, he is painting them before he fully aware of the brush in his hand. He maps out a jaw line, structures the brow and eyes. He models the skin- builds the tonalities out from a pale off-white. Next are the eyes- they are familiar enough to be his own. But they are not. They belonged to Rye Mellark.

He finishes one and starts on another. It is rougher, the form of the face is wider and sketchier, but it is truer to the subject. The eyes are darker, the mouth is set and down-turned. It's his oldest brother, Durum.

He continues well into the night, his brother's faces staring back him from every corner of the room, until he is exhausted and empty. He rinses his brushes under the cold tap, rubbing the pad of his thumbs over the metal base of the bristles. He can't feel the difference in the textures because of the chill of the water, but massaging the bristles releases the tension twisting the muscles between his shoulder blades. All at once he is relaxed and happily tired, as though he as exorcised a vicious energy.

He returns to his studio full of portraits and sits heavily on his stool, his breath calm and even and loud in the stillness of the darkening room. He stares at his brothers faces and lets his memories of them play in his head. He lets himself miss them, he lets his shoulders fall, lets his eyes close and his chin drop.

'They needed me,' he thinks. 'I let them die.'

He falls into guilt- lets it choke him and wrack his body with heaves and tremors.

Day turns into night and he cannot bring himself to move. Light plays across his impassive face. Thoughts drift in and out of his head.

_'Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer, bear the sling and arrows of outrageous fortune...'_

It's there in those words, now over a thousand years old, that he finds the strength to rise.

_'By a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to-'_

It is now as it was then. This pain is thousands of years old. There have been others before him who have choked on their own grief. The knowledge settles like a blanket across his shoulders.

It is enough that he is not alone.

It isn't until he is putting his paintbrushes back that it hits him that he has not seen Katniss return. The air leaves his lungs as though he'd been hit in the chest. He rushes downstairs and flies out onto his porch.

"Hey kid. Sweetheart's not back yet. Know anything about that?"

Haymitch sat on his steps, weary eyes piercing through him in the darkness.

"No. I haven't seen her all day."

Haymitch grunts, but his forehead wrinkles just slightly and his eyes narrow.

"She better get back here soon. Storms brewing."

Peeta says nothing in return as he gazes out toward the stormy horizon. She has never not come home.

They wait through the storm all night on their respective porches, backs propped against their houses, occasionally shooting one another frustrated or wary glances. Neither of them has much they can say. She comes home, or she doesn't, and they find her in the morning.

Nearing dawn, he starts to shake. It's too much. Its too much.

He sends Haymitch a significant glance and clears his throat.

"I can't - I, um- its happening," he says with embarrassment. Spots dance dangerously in his vision and he wonders how much time he'll have to get inside before his episode hits him.

"Get inside then," Haymitch croaks."I'll wait for her."

Peeta nods numbly and gets up.

"She'll be back, kid. She's ok."

He can't bring himself to answer.

He ducks inside and heads up to his studio. Her portraits peek out at him and leer in shadowed light while he sits by the window, fighting the tremors that rattle through him.

Its barely dawn when she races down the road, hair flying out behind her. Its enough.

He can't fight anymore. His vision fades darkly, his mind splinters moment by moment. He shuts himself in the basement and allows numb blackness to swallow him.

* * *

The phone is ringing.

Peeta sits up stiffly on the stone floor and stretches. Pain serrates his back and his maimed leg pulses. He squeezes his eyes shut and then opens them, standing up with difficulty. He braces himself and ascends the stairs to his kitchen. Its late afternoon, and the sun shines in kitchen window.

He draws the black receiver from the walls and mumbles a quiet hello.

"How is she?"

The voice at the other end of the phone is drained and hoarse. Peeta recognizes it immediately and his exhaustion falls away as panic fills him.

"She's doing ok," he answers. "She hunts. But sometimes she's like her mother- she just…"

Its silent for a moment, and then there's a rush of static and what sounds disturbingly like a ragged sob.

"You, take care of her, don't let her-,"

He chokes on his words. Peeta twists the telephone cord tightly around his index finger and glances out the window.

"You- you- FUCK!"

Peeta jumps at the expletive.

Gale slams the phone down and Peeta hears a click as the line disconnects.

He hangs up his phone shakily and presses his hands to his face. Breathing raggedly, he tries to slow his racing heart. Minutes tick by, he's not sure how many, before he can pull his hands away. Trembling, he thumps upstairs to change out of yesterday's clothes. He is nearly at his door when a bundle of cloth sitting in front of his bedroom door catches his eye. His brow furrows, and he picks it up and opens it.

Nestled inside are a few flat lumps of biscuit, blueberries, and a bit of goat cheese.

_'Katniss.'_

The corner of his mouth twists up softly.

_'She is a terrible baker.'_

He eats all of her horrible biscuits on his bed, staring out of his window at the tree swaying slightly in his backyard.

* * *

He catches her just as she is leaving for the second night in a row. His stomach twists when he sees the naked fragility in her eyes, and he knows he doesn't have to will to stop her. So she goes- and he tries to understand.

He's a miserable anxious mess-  _again_ \- pacing trenches into his floor and running his hand through his hair until the scratch of his nails against his scalp worries the skin to soreness.

He bursts from his house, stalking toward the gates of the Village, where he settles himself against the rough brick and waits in the pre-dawn silence.

She is selfish, utterly and incredibly selfish, to do this to him. Dr. Aurelius had been right, he was treading in dangerous waters.

She is sadistic, willfully ignorant of the cruelty of her selfishness, and completely incapable of empathizing with others. A sociopath- thats what she is- hell-bent on destroying everything around her. Anger courses through him. He is right to have been wary of her. She will destroy him entirely if he isn't careful… She will destroy him... She is cruel… She killed his brothers… She- He desperately backpedals, tries to veer away from where his thoughts head, but his mind becomes foggy with shinning memories and he is confused.

Real or not real, she is a mutt?

_'Not real.'_

Real or not real, she tries to keep him safe?

_'Real.'_

Real or not real, she is limping towards him?

Real.

All at once, he comes back to himself, and he feels foolish. She has never pretended to be anything other than what she is- terrified, reckless, stubborn, brave,  _fierce_ \- and in this moment as he watches her limping home he sees so much more. She is tired, like he is. She is struggling and desperate for anything to ease the aches and terrors that dog her, like he is. While he had latched onto her, as he had done so many times in the past, she did what she had always done- run as far and as fast she could.

But this time, whatever it was that had her running so breathlessly she has not escaped from. Not yet. It has driven her forward for hours, and now she is shaking, and hurt, and so  _small_ against the dark swath of trees rising behind her.

He tries to tell himself that the rising pressure in his chest is anxiety. Tries to tell himself that he is just doing the right thing by waiting up for her. He is lying to himself.

And he's a damn fool.

Because when she reaches her hand out towards him, he can't deny that he knows exactly what she's asking him. Can't deny that her trembling doesn't steady his resolve. Can't deny that there aren't moments when it seems as though she is the only person left in his desolate world.

And he can't deny her his presence, if it means she'll dream sweetly. He can beat his heart for her. As long as she needs.

He lies down next to her in her bed, and he's not afraid he'll hurt her after the high-dose morphling tablet passes his lips. Even if he has an episode, he'll be too weak to move. Too weak to even wake up for hours. His eyes move over her neck, where a vein flutters underneath her skin.

He wants to kiss it. Would it beat against his lips as ardently?

' _I'm an idiot.'_

Sleep is a fresh hell. He watches her die a hundred times, and can't lift his eyelids to see if it's real or not.

* * *

 


End file.
